Liwanag Festival 2013 off to rousing start

WITH very promising goals that include creating global change, Liwanag World Festival 2013 got off to a rousing start at the Philippine Women's College (PWC) Tuesday afternoon.

The event's prime movers and hundreds of participants from different countries gathered for the opening ceremonies of the four-day festivity, which culminates on Friday.

Nicanor Perlas, Liwanag co-organizer, said the event aims to focus in showcasing brilliant and heart-centered initiatives in all dimensions of sustainability, ecological, economic, cultural, political, societal, human and spiritual.

DAVAO. Nicanor Perlas, co-founder of Movement of Imaginals for Sustainable Societies through Initiatives, Organizing and Networking (Mission), appears like he’s holding a flame as he gives the overview of the Liwanag International Festival during the opening program held at the Philippine Women’s College, Tuesday evening, with the Liwanag logo in the background. (King Rodriguez)

Present during the opening are leaders and representatives from the academe, government and business sector. The gala also aims to ignite inner change among these sectors in order to create holistic and long-term changes.

The festival is also a celebration of music (indigenous and diverse cultural expressions), art exhibits, artistic performances, organic food markets, parallel workshops, panel discussions, rituals and a global conference.

Leonardo Avila III, one of the organizers of the event, welcomed the participants during the first day of the festival.

Among the speakers for the four-day event are lawyer and author Alex Lacson, Human Nature's CEO Dylan Wilk, ABS-CBN Foundation managing director Gina Lopez, journalist Maria Ressa, Center for Social Innovation founder Tony Meloto, ThinkOut World founder Seth Jordan, movement artist Jay Cruz, and sculptor and visual artist Kublai Millann.

The invited speakers will be sharing their expertise in a bid to kindle inner change among the individuals and, thereby, create a sustainable and commutative change that will benefit the masses.

"There will be no outer change if there is no inner change and we cannot give what we don’t have," Perlas said during the opening on Tuesday.

One of the biggest challenges that the festival aims to achieve is to articulate a positive inspiring vision of the future and to showcase initiatives that, now in the present, advance the pursuit of new communities, societies, and civilizations on the basis of this positive image of the future.